In the Culdesac part of Tempe, Arizona, residents are the first non-urban community in the U.S. to boast a walkable, car-free neighborhood.
Also a huge number of people in the US travel to places that are walkable:
- Disney World
- Las Vegas (The strip is anyway)
- DC
- NYC
Conservative = my group is better than yours so we deserve power and resources
Tactics:
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Scape goating a weak group to sell it to a lower class (E.g. Pre MLK US blacks - poor whites)
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Appealing to fear and presenting a protector strong man
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Appealing to tradition and good old days (that sucked)
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Anti intellectualism
Wastewater? Maybe get a job at your local plant or office? They need all sorts of people: customer service, maintenance, engineers, automotive, chemists, IT, etc. The alternative is dumping raw sewage in water ways. They sometimes have apprenticeship programs.
ETA: Best job security in the world. People aren't going to stop shitting anytime soon. People don't want rivers of shit. So....
ETA2: I know you said you are coming in unskilled, but a lot of better places to work will pay for education if you wanted to go from say customer service to engineering or something.
2024 resolution. Make 2023 peak oil
Maybe he is the 3 eyed raven? Brandon....
Maybe he is the 3 eyed raven? Brandon....
A number of measures to help students concentrate are taken during the annual event such as closing the country's airspace and delaying the opening of the stock market.
That is what thinking of the children really looks like. Here in the US we just make stupid age verification laws for porn sites like it is going to make porn hard for teenagers to get.
Unless you REALLY need color, just buy a Brother BW laser printer. Toner doesn't dry up. It is all but guaranteed to be the cheapest option. I bought the scanner BW laser printer combo like 8 years ago for $130.
So you want to advance to a higher level and have a broad interests?
You failed some MS cert exam?
You have a review coming up?
Broad interests. Don't miss the forest for the trees. Learn core concepts and things that are useful in many contexts rather than specifics. This is where a lot of newbies go wrong. E.g. don't learn about AD, learn LDAP and AD, OpenLDAP, DS389, will all come much easier. In most roles some basic programming with Python will come in handy. Once you learn to write code in one language, learning others comes a lot faster. Some worthwhile things to have a foundational grasp of: PKI and how it is used by SSH and TLS, a high level understanding of common network protocols. Peruse IETF RFCs for that. E.g. if you know how say DNS works, you can manage it using any DNS server software. Ditto http and web servers. You will need to learn configuration management SW and monitoring SW. I prefer salt stack and zabbix. There are many good choices.
Seriously learn PKI and TLS. I can recommend some good sources. TLS is used by pretty much everything to secure connections. Backup server to agent, browser to web server, AV to server, you name it.
Open Source is your friend, learn a bit about big projects. E.g. say you get good with backups and want to work for your favorite product vendor. That fancy backup appliance or cloud service is probably running Linux or FreeBSD on the metal and using something like Tomcat for the WebUI.
Learn a bit about licensing models. You will have to deal with it no matter what path you choose.
I wouldn't try to impress your supervisor. Chances are, they'll see through it. They may or may not care about their employees. Assume they don't. Don't assume the worst either. You can almost always trust interests. Their job in an MSP environment is to make sure contractual requirements are met and clients are happy. Focus on where your interests are aligned. Happy clients mean less headaches for you and your boss. I would let them lead the conversation, but focus on that aspect. If a lot of clients use X thing, mention that to your boss that you want to learn more about X thing as it will help you close tickets faster.
The US intelligence apparatus doesn't do this. The OPM does.
As per your second paragraph and many other comments. I agree. It is hard to avoid it being politicized at any step of the process. Everything interview would have to be recorded. Copies of all reviewed records would need to be kept. Adjudicators would need heavily redacted transcripts of the records and interviews.
I was the same way. IMO, philosophy is WAY underrated. If the takeaway from intro to philosophy courses is ancient Greeks had some strange ideas about atoms and such, that is missing the point. Below is for anyone that has never touched philosophy at all.
Ethics is NOT what the corporate ethics things say about following the rules. Ethics in this context would raise the question of whether always following company rules is the right thing to do? Is right and wrong objective or subjective? Is something right in some contexts but wrong in others? Which system of thought should you be using (consequentialism, virtue, deontological)? I was just following orders when I murdered those people! By our laws it was legal, therefore right! It is a great way to persuade people and make decisions.
Epistemology is absolutely key to critical thinking. How do you determine what you know vs what you merely believe? Can you trust that error message is accurate? Can you trust your memory? Personal experience? It is a great way to build a world class bullshit detector.
Metaphysics gets you to think about things at a more foundational level. Think about a stop sign. Is it a red octogon with stop in white letters? Not everywhere. It could be a cop or crossing guard with their hand out. It could be a red light. It could be a red sign that isn't an octogon at all. It is a great way to learn to challenge your assumptions about the nature of the world and things.
I wouldn't be surprised if that is a take away by some people. The rebuttal:
It is a book about how to write unambiguously and clearly.
Clear writing isn't useful? Think about arguments about phrases in the Constitution. Clarity would make those problems go away. I could name half a dozen STEM applications of quality writing off the top of my head:
- User Manuals
- Grant Proposals
- Research Results
- Emails to clients or coworkers
- Project plans
- Text books
20 year IT veteran here. What are your areas of interest?
Some potential areas:
- Networking
- AV
- End Points (PCs, phones, etc)
- Security
- Virtualization
- Programming
- Servers
- Applications
- Databases
- Storage
- Project Management
- Systems Analysis
Strunks Elements of Style should be mandatory reading every year of high school.
Match him right and maybe it could be like The Viper and the Mountain.
Rudy vs Alex
They get paid 274k...DC is expensive, but anyone that can't live very comfortably on that is awful with money. Being awful with money will lose you a TS clearance because it makes you susceptible to bribery by spies. I would think it would also be a disqualifier for a SCOTUS judge for the same reason.
I think maintaining a TS clearance should be a requirement for all positions above a certain level in the federal government. Not because they need access to TS information, but to ensure they are at a lower risk of bribery, adversarial interests, and criminal activity. Getting a TS clearance isn't terribly hard. Just generally have your act together. As long as you aren't a train wreck, a drug addict, a criminal, an untrustworthy asshat, or have connections to adversaries, you will pass adjudication. TLDR: A TS clearance would ensure high level government employees are minimumly functional humans.
Another area where electric wins is smoking. My electric smoker is much easier to use and produces superior results to using charcoal. A really nice electric smoker can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. The electricity it uses is cheaper than charcoal too.
I know how a lot of people here feel about eating meat at all, but considering the current situation, anything that is better buys time to make even bigger cuts.
Beef is a big culprit with emissions, and I'll tell you what, a well smoked humble and cheap chicken drumstick will taste amazing.
ETA: It isn't just the emissions from burning the charcoal that are saved. It is also the emissions producing and transporting the charcoal to their usage point. High voltage AC is pretty hard to beat in efficient transport of energy.
Wow is that an old version of NGINX. Bad sys admin! If you are going to change your server string, have some fun. Set it to "server 1.0. Today's special is caramel horse apple"
The poor thing is probably mining bit coins and deploying ransomware!
Government with cancellation of $6b of projects unless they got appropriate legislation.
I'm a yank, so I might be talking out of the wrong hole here. That sounds like an empty threat. If those projects are in their interest, they will do them. Assume corporations will act in their own interest, unless they are organized like Facebook and their management is immune. Otherwise, less principled institutional and large share holders will replace them.
Believe it or not, the woke backlash thing seems to be false:
https://www.truthorfiction.com/pink-floyds-woke-50th-anniversary-rainbow-controversy/
Anybody that is a fan or even old enough to know who Pink Floyd has seen that 50 year old album cover.
Anyone following them where they would see that post is going to be aware of this.
As much as I hate the anti-woke stuff from the right, it appears this is pure sensationalism.
This means two things. One, they (the right in the US) go on about it so much, people don't bother fact checking. Two, the left isn't immune to BS.
Small Changes
I am well aware of the problems with car dependent design, that isn't what this is about.
I was driving in my car mandatory suburb and was delayed by a good 10 minutes due to a pair of very poorly timed lights. The main thoroughfare had a left turn lane split off that was backed up onto the main road. The turn light would literally turn green for about 5 seconds. A bit further down the road, a light controls traffic to a neighborhood of SFH with very few cars coming or going. The light on the main road would turn red for literally no cars longer than the other light stayed green with so many cars it caused a backup.
Simply adjusting these traffic lights would save loads of time, fuel, and EMISSIONS. It got me wondering what other things like adjusting those lights could be done that even the thirstiest petroholic can't object to?
My example is a drop in the bucket to the GHG problem, but enough drops will fill the bucket. I will be contacting my city about it. I don't doubt they will at least attempt to fix it because traffic is a common complaint, so a simple fix is an easy win for them.
Portugal just ran on 100 percent renewables for six days in a row
For nearly a week, the country of 10 million met customer needs with wind, hydro and solar — a test run for operating the grid without fossil fuels.
How about some good news today?
Doomerism
I would like to address the doomers.
Just stop. All you are accomplished is dissuading people from trying. Even if we fail, some of us would rather go out feeling good about ourselves knowing that we actually tried. If we succeed, I want to be on the right side of history. If you want to drive a canyonero through a drive through to buy a double cheeseburger on your way to the airport to fly somewhere for a shopping trip: please keep it to yourself.
- There is still hope
- Most people want action. I can cite more than one source.
- Things are starting to turn around. Not as fast as we need to, but we are seeing change
- Some of us are parents and have a reason to fight with all we have
- If things get bad, our kids will actually want to have a relationship with us if we cared enough to try
- Many things that help are economically better on the micro and macro scales
Doomers are the fossil fuel industry's best friend-- even more than the deniers are. If enough people succumb to it, they don't even have to pay lip service to the problem. Doomerism means you can continue to pollute and not even try.
Key US election results
The battle for control of the Virginia legislature is still hanging in the balance, but the first round of returns from Tuesday’s off-year elections delivered one clear message: abortion rights are popular, no matter when or where they are on the ballot.
Good News. Kentucky re-elected Democratic governor. Virginia flipped house of delegates to Democrats, gaining complete control of state legislature.
Kentucky shows is that even in red states, Democrats have the numbers. This shows how critical showing up and voting is.
GOP/Republicans bad for climate change. They deny it, say it isn't humans, etc. Democrats at least acknowledge we need to do something.
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For those outside the US, we have first past the post voting, which inevitably leads to two political parties.
State governments hold a lot of power. They are almost completely over sovereign with certain restrictions and reservations of power by our federal government.
GOP (aka Republicans) = Right to far right. I.e. libertarian, fascist, conservative, Christian nationalist.
Democrat = center right to far left. I.e. conservative, progressive, socialist, neoliberal
Democrats have greater numbers by a good margin, but have lower voter turnout and are disenfranchised electorial due to gerrymandering.
Democrats are crying foul, suggesting the timing of the rebates is political in nature.
Not a good look...
The Type-D school bus uses a 387 kWh lithium iron phosphate battery.
Ideally, rezoning and infrastructure changes would reduce the need for school buses. We don't have the time though, so this is a win. Hopefully production can ramp up and governments can create incentives for schools to buy these instead of dead dino powered buses.
Clean Energy is Officially “unstoppable” Now
The International Energy Agency has a new forecast for 2030.
TLDR: Fossil fuels are going to all but end sooner or later.
My take, the industry can waste time and money lobbying and wrecking their reputation and the planet even more, or they can get with the program and start transitioning to other operations. I.e. they can choose the redemption arc or the self destruction arc.
Media Should Dedicate Space to Climate Crisis
I wrote a short article asking media to dedicate time or space to climate content. Notice how in the site navigation I have a link to a dedicated climate section. E.g. if you are a general news site, you would have a section called Climate in the same way you have World, Your Country, Weather, etc....
TLDR: Media needs to do more. News outlets should add climate sections along with the rest of their news sections.
I'd like to see more actionable content like how to convince city governments to do stuff. E.g All the stuff a lot of the urbanists talk about are better in almost every way than the car dependency we have in the US. The NIMBYs are relentless in my area. They organized on next door to show up at a zoning meeting in my area to try and prevent a rezone so a developer could build 4 story condos rather than practically useless offices now that most office stuff can be done remotely.
Des Moines Airport is Building New Terminal
They are spending 445 million USD on this.
I wonder how many of these flights are to other Midwest cities that could be easily replaced with HSR?
They could even build the rail station into the airport. It is on the edge of the city so there is ample space.
If I were king of the US, I'd connect all of the Major Midwest cities between the Appalachians and Rockies and then run the lines through the SW desert cities and then north up to Spokane and Seattle. Building through the mountains is expensive, so let's not make perfect the enemy of good and go after the most cost effective locations. It would be feasible to run lines from Miami up to Bangor too. Connect it to the Western system through the deep south cities.
Ever have one of those days?
Days that nothing catastrophic happens, but lots of moderate things happen all in the same day? You wake up not feeling great, so the morning plans are toast. Then afternoon plans fall through. The stuff you do in the meantime doesn't work out well either. To add insult to injury, dinner just doesn't come out right. You feel like you are the butt of the jokes in a crappy comedy movie. Today is one of those days for me.
What the Fossil Fuel Industry Doesn't Want You To Know | Al Gore | TED
Great speech by Al Gore about the fossil fuel industry.
Fight back by lobbying local officials for things that reduce car dependency!
While we all work towards political change, in the mean time we can all focus on our consumption habits.
Aligning purchases with GHG reduction will save you money because you will buy less over time. You will have better stuff. It can even be more convenient. E.g. a nice espresso setup in a car dependent area is cheaper in the long run and more convenient than driving to a coffee shop all the time.
Effective Activism
We often see news about climate protests. What we don't see is how effective or ineffective it is.
Rose Abramoff pointed out how they have had great success delaying, and hopefully eventually stopping the MVP pipeline:
https://climatejustice.rocks/@ultracricket/111035854628921172
Anybody that works in a media outlet, please start drawing attention to activism successes. Make it front and center in the headline or opening paragraph.
If we want to stop global warming, we need EFFECTIVE action. Start spreading the word on what gets results.
Publish how to convince city governments to fix car dependency.
Remember, global warming, if left unchecked could be the worst thing that has happened to humanity. WW2 was pretty bad. American and European imperialism was pretty bad. The black death was pretty bad. Let that sink in.
Creators, start writing and spreading the word on how to fight global warming effectively, within the confines of your local laws of course. Here in the US, you can certainly write about people that have broken the law and what the consequences were, like Rosa Parks.
Americans generally support climate policy, but they think others generally don't
A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.
My fellow Americans. Get off your asses and vote. In every election. Even in red areas. If we all get off our asses, we will generally win. Run for local office if you are able. Contact local officials and get them to take measures.
How did Peter Piper pick pickled peppers?
Were the peppers already pickled on the plant somehow? Is there a type of pepper called pickled peppers? What is a peck anyway?
Are self-driving cars already safer than human drivers? Answer: It raises a different point
I learned a lot by reading dozens of Waymo and Cruise crash reports.
The fact that self driving cars exist is an admission that driving a car can really suck. Navigating busy suburbs and cities in a car is a stressful experience, especially when people are commuting to or from work.
I don't think cars should be completely eliminated, as they have their place, but the existence of self driving cars is strong evidence of the insanity of the car being the only feasible way to get around some parts of the world.